These Irish Eyes Aren’t Smiling
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) when they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.
“You see, you can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)
December 21, 2022—News Flash! In celebration of the Winter Solstice (and because I’m tired of staying up so late each time getting these long-winded-reviews posted, using a balky computer that's going in for servicing very quickly so I'll be awhile in replying to any comments), Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark will be taking a break for a week or 2, but we’ll see you again in early January 2023. Have the Happiest of Holidays (whatever you celebrate) to everyone until then!
Opening Chatter (no spoilers): Despite a strong curiosity to see Avatar: The Way of Water (James Cameron), along with the many others who propelled it to $134.1 million in box-office-receipts in domestic theaters on its opening weekend, $441.7 million globally, the rapid rise of COVID variants in my San Francisco area is continuing to keep this now-75-year-old-body away from large public gatherings (birthday last weekend; my wonderful wife cooked me a marvelous steak dinner [with great wine from friends] so we didn’t have to risk virus-exposure in a restaurant; I stirred up one of my impactful mai-tai’s which probably met my maximum alcohol consumption for the next couple of months; fortunately, everything’s starting to feel back to normal now, whatever “normal” is), so Nina and I tuned in for a freebie to Disney+ (rents for $3.99 on many other platforms) to watch again the original Avatar (Cameron, 2009)—the All-Time worldwide income champ at $2.9 billion—which still looks magnificent, even though it’s “merely” in HD rather than 3-D as we originally saw it. For reviewing purposes, though, I turned to a recently-arrived-streaming option (on HBO Max, free to subscribers) for the Irish tale of The Banshees of Inisherin which reunites director McDonagh with his In Bruges (2008) stars, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, about 2 old friends whose relationship comes to an abrupt end, with further (somewhat gruesome) complications manifesting afterward. Also, here are links for the schedule of the cable network, Turner Classic Movies, which gives you a wide selection of older films with no commercial interruptions and the JustWatch site which offers you a wide selection of options for streaming rental or purchase. If you'd just want to see what reigned at the domestic (U.S.-Canada) box-office last weekend, go here.
Here’s the trailer for The Banshees of Inisherin:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate
that same button or use the “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: The events of this film occur on the (fictionally-named) island of Inisherin (shot on the actual island of Inishmore), a tiny place off the west coast of the larger island of Ireland in 1923 where the Irish Civil War raged on the Irish mainland between the Provisional Government of Ireland, representing the Irish Free State following the Irish War of Independence (begun in 1919, eventually liberated 26 southern Irish counties from the United Kingdom in 1921 but kept them within the British Commonwealth; the 6 counties of Northern Ireland still remain within the present structure of the U.K.) and the Irish Republican Army who saw the new structure as not fitting the intentions of the declaration of the Irish Republic in 1918 (I’m vying for a free draught of Guinness beer if I can use the words “Irish” or “Ireland” the most times in one sentence. How am I doing?). The Civil War (which stopped in a 1923 ceasefire but no official ending treaty even to this day) doesn’t seem to have led to any conflicting factions on Inisherin, but there’s a more interpersonal battle going on between our 2 protagonists, which makes up the bulk of the narrative within this film.
For years local, noted fiddler Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) has shared a close friendship with Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell), highlighted by a daily meeting at the pub for a pint (or more, maybe) until the day that Pádraic comes to Colm’s home at the normally-appointed-time, finds he won’t answer the door-knock, goes to the pub where Colm finally shows up but rejects any further interaction with Pádraic because Colm, in his advancing years, wants to devote whatever of his life he has left to composing music, doing actions for which he’ll be remembered; further, he now says he finds Pádraic to be dull, is wasting precious time in daily conversations with him for 12 years that have achieved nothing (in a later scene Pádraic counters that he’s just trying to be a good friend, trying to be nice in the face of this rejection which brings the rebuttal from Colm: centuries after their deaths no one who was just “nice” is remembered at all, whereas great artists like Mozart live on in our awareness even centuries later). Pádraic’s stunned by this, expresses his displeasure to his sister, Siobhán Súilleabháin (Kerry Condon), who attempts to confront Colm on her brother’s behalf, saying sure he’s dull but so are most of the people on this island, yet her attempts are for naught. Pádraic then gives Siobhán an additional reason to be frustrated with him as well (she’s already upset that he keeps allowing his pet miniature-donkey, Jenny, to frequently wander into their home) by inviting their friend Dominic Kearney (Barry Keoghan) to stay with them because the young man’s having constant conflicts with his brutal policeman father, Peadar Kearney (Gary Lydon). Siobhán says Dominic can stay for one night only, but even then he makes quite a pest of himself with his irritating remarks. Soon Pádraic’s confronted by angry Peadar for listening to his son’s accusations, slugs Pádraic; Colm helps his former friend onto Pádraic's wagon, rides a bit with him, then leaves.
Another cloud in Pádraic’s increasingly-overcast-sky comes from strange Mrs. O’Riordan (Bríd Ní Neachtain), a snippy woman who darkens things further by predicting there will soon be 2 deaths on the island (there’s also a caustic shopkeeper, Mrs. McCormick [Shelia Flitton] who cares only for useful gossip which Pádraic can’t provide so he's dismissed). Within all of this turmoil (may not seem like much to us, but it’s quite upsetting for Pádraic, given the normally-placid-expectations of life in this essentially-closed-community; they can hear gunfire from the Civil War, but there seems to be little interaction between residents of their island and the mainland). Pádraic continues to try to re-establish his connection with Colm which further frustrates the older man to the point where he tells Pádraic to either leave him alone or Colm will use his sheep shears to cut off one of his own fingers for each intrusion. Neither Pádraic nor Siobhán can quite believe Colm would do such a self-destructive act, but Dominic just notes that even missing a finger Colm could still play his fiddle. Later, at the pub one day a drunken Pádraic confronts Colm then tries to apologize, only to find a bit later that the man’s come to the Súilleabháin home, thrown a severed finger against their front door.
Next, Dominic tries to make romantic overtures to Siobhán who’s totally uninterested, decides she’s fed up with her unfulfilled life on the island, moves to the mainland to take a library job. Colm finishes a new tune called “The Banshees of Inisherin” (even though he admits there are no banshees there), which opens him up to consider rekindling the friendship with Pádraic, until the latter admits he tricked a musician friend of Colm’s into leaving the close-knit-world of Inisherin. ⇒In intense anger, Colm cuts off the remaining fingers of his left hand, throws them against Pádraic’s door again, but this time Jenny tries to eat one of them, chokes to death. Distraught Pádraic blames Colm for the donkey’s demise (although it truly was an accident), tells him he intends to burn down Colm’s house the next day, which he does after first bringing Colm’s dog outside even as he looks through the window to see Colm sitting amongst the flames (we’ve also seen Colm in confession where he tells the priest he has no remorse for his decisions, so the fire scene may imply something about Purgatory or even worse). Peadar’s soon on his way to Pádraic’s home but is distracted by Mrs. O’Riordan who takes him to a nearby lake where he sees Dominic’s dead body. Next day Pádraic goes to the beach with Colm’s dog, surprisingly finds the old man there. Colm apologizes for Jenny’s death, says the destroyed house has ended their feud, but Pádraic says their troubles would be over only if Colm died in the fire. Colm leaves with his dog, even as nothing is resolved.⇐
So What? This is a simple story to watch—although some of the involved events defy easy, rational explanation—which I likely wouldn’t have done anyway when it was theatrically released back on October 21, 2022 (because then [like now], I was avoiding theaters due to COVID, until I finally relented at Thanksgiving for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever [Ryan Coogler; review in our December 1, 2022 posting]), but I was confirmed in that earlier decision thanks (now, no thanks) to a review from my local San Francisco Chronicle cinematic guru, Mick LaSalle, who said: “But what McDonagh comes up with doesn’t illuminate his premise, but rather seems like a smoke screen to cover the fact that there’s nothing here to illuminate. McDonagh employs cleverness to distract you from the movie’s essential emptiness.” I don’t always find agreement with LaSalle’s positions, yet he seemed convincing enough in his review that I basically put The Banshees … way to the back of my mental queue, that is until I once again last week added to my ongoing postings (considerably farther below) the Metacritic sites where they tally critics’ Top 10 lists and various awards nominations/wins for 2022 releases. As I looked over those still-in-progress-accumulations I was quite surprised to see (at this “press” time for me at least) that in the noms/awards listings … Inisherin ranks as #2 for Best Picture, McDonagh’s at #4 for Best Director, Farrell’s way ahead for Best Actor, Gleeson’s a solid #2 for Best Supporting Actor, Condon’s solidly in the lead for Best Supporting Actress, just as the screenplay (original in this case) is also currently at #1, while the critics overall have it as #3 for the year. So, this seemed like a solid investment of viewing time after all, now that it’s available for streaming, a decision I’m so glad I made. Although, I admit, upon a first viewing the slow-moving but increasingly-grotesque events might seem like an odd experience for so much lavish praise (I’ll cite some of that in this review’s next section), so it might help to get further insights into what’s going on here, although I’ll leave it up to you if you want to allow Spoilers into your awareness of what’s occurring before you’d see the film for yourself (with a strong encouragement from me to seek it out).
If you’re willing to risk Spoilers (or decide to see The Banshees … first, then watch the 2 videos I’m recommending right now) then I’ll first note this one, an 8:01 statement (ad interrupts at 5:00) that explores what the ending’s all about, followed with more depth from another one, an 8:03 analysis (ad interrupts at 5:56) which gets more into the background of Irish folklore; the connection of banshees to death (so that their mere presence is unsettling, even before they begin wailing about the recently departed) along with the consideration of Mrs. O’Riordan as a banshee, given all the trouble she prefers to be associated with; and the concept that this bitter feud between old friends is an allegory for the Civil War where former Irish allies are now killing each other (the narrator of this second video has a thick [at least for me] Irish accent, though, so you might want to use the YouTube CC button on the lower right of the screen to bring up helpful closed captions). Adding to this allegorical-argument is the translation of “Inisherin” to simply mean the “island of Ireland,” so it seems that McDonagh is quite clear here on what he intends rather than the film being the “cinematic void” proposed by Mr. LaSalle (telling me that in this case, back in late October I should have been more persuaded by another local San Francisco-area-critic, Randy Myers: “[… a] darkly humorous parable [… that] echoes the disharmonious, jagged-edge times in which we live. […] It’s certainly one of Farrell’s finest performances and like the film itself, his loneliness sticks in your craw like an oft-recited Irish limerick.” The working out of events here may be more ambiguous than you’d care for in a fully-resolved-conclusion, but the unexplained aspects give you plenty to mull over (maybe over some mull wine—or, even better, a glass of Guinness) long after the credits have rolled.
Bottom Line Final Comments: It’s not just me and Randy out here in the Nancy Pelosi-realm of the Left Coast disagreeing with Mick (whose knowledge of cinema I respect, despite my occasional rejection of his decisions); let me note how the overall-CCAT's in league with us, as Rotten Tomatoes reviews hit the significant 97% positive realm while Metacritic's average score is at 87% (clearly one of the highest responses shared by me and them of 2022 releases, with only their average score of 91% for Tár [Todd Field; review in our December 1, 2022 posting] any higher [Tár is another fat 4-star response from me as well]). Even with my initial hesitation based on LaSalle’s (bone-headed?) dismissal, I should have known better given McDonagh’s marvelous successes with In Bruges—also starring Farrell and Gleeson—plus the astounding Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017; review in our December 7, 2017 posting), winner of Oscars as Best Actress for Frances McDormand, Best Supporting Actor for Sam Rockwell, and nominations for Best Picture, Original Screenplay (McDonagh), Film Editing, Original Score, and another Supporting Actor nom for Woody Harrelson. I’d say this filmmaker’s still absolutely well on target with The Banshees …, even if certain well-established-critics don’t really seem to fully realize what he’s presenting here.
Others, though, are quite complimentary, such as the Chicago Sun-Times Richard Roeper: “[…] Gleeson and Farrell once again are pure movie magic together, with Gleeson’s gruff and rugged and imposing persona the perfect counterpart to Farrell’s handsome and wide-eyed transparency, which at times borders on the, well, the not-too-bright. Earnest, but not too bright,” or Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt: “Banshees, with its Kelly-green vistas, warbled shanties, and blithe obscenities ("feck" [not 'fuck'] is a noun, an adjective, and sometimes a verb), could easily come off as the kind of Irish burlesque we've seen many times before; instead, the movie turns out to invert cliché as much as it embraces it.” The Banshees … might still be found in a theater in your vicinity (165 out of the 960 at its height after all these weeks, where it’s made only about $8.8 million in box-office receipts from domestic venues, $19 million worldwide, though), but it’s likely more accessible (if you’re a subscriber) via streaming on HBO Max, so if its odd story finds some appeal for you I’d highly encourage you to check it out. For this week, however, as I amble off into a bit of a rest from my all-too-frequent-late-night-postings, I’ll leave you with my usual closure of a Musical Metaphor, although I may not be as accurate this time as I normally try my best to be with these aural choices.
Honestly, if I knew traditional Irish music better (I don’t think “Danny Boy” or “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” exactly fit with this film’s content)*—but I did hear a good bit of marvelous tunes of that type on a trip to the Canadian Maritimes a few years ago—or even contemporary options (probably U2 has something relevant, but I don’t know what it is), so I’ll turn to my best-known-Irish-musician, Van Morrison, but even with him I don’t have an extensive knowledge of his catalogue (although I’ve seen him in marvelous concert a couple of times—and, yes, I know he’s from the North, raised a Protestant at that [not religious now, it seems], unlike with the film’s focus on the Republic, but he had nothing to do with establishing a U.K.-E.U. border, so I’m just listening to his music and appreciating it); therefore, I’ll take something that may resonate somewhat with the mysterious banshee undercurrent of this film to give you “Into the Mystic” (from his 1970 album Moondance) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ59spYH9mk with its references to being “born before the wind / Also younger than the sun […] And I want to rock your gypsy soul / Just like way back in the days of old / And magnificently we will float [unlike Colm and Pádraic] / Into the mystic.” Well, maybe I just wanted to hear that “foghorn whistle blow" again or just use a song I know my magnificent wife, Nina, is always glad to listen to (happy to note her [who, by the way, also has a small amount of Irish DNA, about as much as me—see just below], given she’s one of the few regular readers of this blog who ever gives me any feedback on it, despite Google telling me thousands of you out there read these reviews each month), so if I’ve accomplished that, even if these southern Irishmen don’t care for a Belfast musician, at least something’s functioning better here than the sustained acrimony between Colm and Pádraic, though I do greatly encourage you to see what these oddities are up to.
*It’s a bit sad I don’t know this culture better than I do, as several DNA tests have shown me to have at least a minimal dose of Irish heritage, but don’t assume anything about my background simply based on my surname of Burke because I’m adopted; however, my adoptive father was about 75% Irish although he had no interest in such, not even a plate of corned beef and cabbage (which I could easily eat at least once a month, so maybe that’s my limited-heritage-verification after all—by the way, I’m also trying to win another pint of Guinness for incorporating the longest, unnecessary asides ever into a film review; I think my chances are pretty good as I slip into the Mystic myself for awhile).
SHORT TAKES
That’s all for my critical commentary this week (which usually reminds me of some parting lyrics from Pink Floyd’s "Time": “The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say,” or maybe R.E.M. knows me even better [from "Losing My Religion"]: “Oh no, I’ve said too much / I haven’t said enough”), but whether you agree with any of that stuff or not I’ll offer you one more opportunity to be in unity with an attitude that would benefit all of us, James Taylor’s "Shower the People" (on his 1976 In the Pocket album), because we should “Shower the people you love with love / Show them the way that you feel / Things are gonna be much better/ If you only will.” We’re now sailing through divisive times; it could be a smoother ride if we’d only help each other a bit more.
Other Cinema-Related Stuff: Extra items for you: (1) Is James Cameron's vision for the Avatar franchise's still-to-come-sequels a dream or an illusion?; (2) Can Avatar: The Way of Water make the $2 billion it needs to be profitable?; (3) Variety's choice for the Worst Films of 2022 (fortunately, I haven't seen most of them but disagree about Amsterdam and Blonde); (4) Emancipation, starring Will Smith (reviewed in our December 15, 2022 posting), almost had a morbid ending; (5) Variety's version of the Top 100 Films of All-Time (Sight & Sounds new #1--details in our Dec. 15, 2022 posting in this location--only made #78 on Variety's list).
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll down to the bottom of this Summary page to see some additional info about you wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list). Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage. If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!
*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.
AND … at least until the Oscars for 2022’s releases have been awarded on Sunday, March 12, 2023 we’re also going to include reminders in each posting of very informative links where you can get updated tallies of which films have been nominated for and/or received various awards and which ones made various individual critic’s Top 10 lists. You may find the diversity among the various awards competitions and the various critics hard to reconcile at times—not to mention the often-significant-gap between critics’ choices and competitive-award-winners (which pales when they’re compared to the even-more-noticeable-gap between specific award winners and big box-office-grosses you might want to monitor here)—but as that less-than-enthusiastic-patron-of-the-arts, Plato, noted in The Symposium (385-380 BC)—roughly translated, depending on how accurate you wish the actual quote to be—“Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder,” so your choices for success are as valid as any of these others, especially if you offer some rationale for your decisions (unlike any awards voters who blindly fill out ballots, sometimes—damn it!—for films they have never seen).
To save you a little time scrolling through the “various awards” list above, here are the 2023 Golden Globe nominees (if you even care about them after all of their recent controversies); The Banshees ... as Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy (hard for me to agree on this classification; seems more of a drama where those mutilations/deaths are concerned) as well as individual nominations for Farrell, Condon, Gleeson, Keoghan, McDonagh, along with Best Screenplay - Motion Picture and Original Score are G.Globe recognitions for this oddball film.
Here’s more information about The Banshees of Inisherin:
https://www.searchlightpictures.com/the-banshees-of-inisherin/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj8b0Jsm2JQ 9:48 interview with director-screenwriter Martin McDonagh and actors Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_banshees_of_inisherin
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-banshees-of-inisherin
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